Tess instinctively extended both hands before her, desperately striving to maintain her balance. The seemingly solid ground beneath her feet undulated like a tempestuous liquid wave, challenging her equilibrium. Adrift in the midst of what felt like an earthquake, there was nothing she could cling to for support.
"Cover your heads!" Zack's urgent command resounded from the quaking ground.
With trembling limbs, Tess sank to her knees, shielding her vulnerable skull with her hands, bracing herself for an onslaught of tumbling rocks.
She cursed Sensei in her mind as she awaited the brutal assault. To her surprise, the unyielding surface beneath her knee pads ceased its tumultuous motion. As she realized her arms remained unscathed, she released a heavy sigh, relief washing over her.
A faint sound of something rolling across the ground jolted her attention upward. It was her glowstick. Her eyes widened in astonishment as it halted just shy of colliding with an unseen obstacle. She had sworn they had been in an empty expanse.
Rising to her feet, Tess squinted, straining her vision to discern their surroundings. Their scattered glow sticks, their feeble luminescence persisting, unveiled a revelation—tall columns now adorned the vast space, shrouding it in an even deeper darkness, obscuring the light.
A projectile, solid as rock, struck Tess's right arm with formidable force, propelling her off balance and causing her to collapse onto her side. Simultaneously, sounds of impact from the others resonated through the air, indicating that they, too, had been struck.
Curling her legs close to her body, Tess's heart raced within her chest. One by one, the glowsticks flickered out, plunging the surroundings into an impenetrable abyss. She knew she possessed an additional glowstick yet untouched, but an innate intuition warned her against attracting whatever presence lingered within their shared enclosure.
Two luminescent red eyes floated in mid-air, side by side, drawing nearer to Tess. The longer she fixated on them, the more the insidious ache in her head intensified, pulsating with increasing potency. The eyes commenced a disconcerting dance, leaping erratically, exacerbating the torment until she was compelled to squeeze her eyes shut.
In a surge of determination, she sprung to her feet, summoning a sword into her grasp, slashing fiercely through the air where the eyes were. The weapon sliced through nothingness, yielding no tangible target for her strikes.
Impossible! How did it move so fast? Could it perceive her in this inky darkness? She pondered aloud, her voice tinged with incredulity.
Devoid of sight, she felt vulnerable, her senses attuned to the surrounding stillness, a shared anticipation that gripped her comrades.
Why, at this crucial moment, did the throbbing headache assail her? She could not fathom it, for she had long ceased employing her ocular ability. Yet, the more she ruminated and waited, the more her mind eased, and the pain gradually subsided.
When she dared to reopen her eyes, a sight both disconcerting and shocking greeted her—a cluster of radiant crimson eyes, perilously close. She emitted a startled shriek, employing her blades to unleash a series of slashes aimed at the eyes.
Once again, the blades met empty space, their impact void. The relentless headache intensified each time she gazed upon the fiery eyes. As they drew perilously near, an impending sense of doom engulfed her until, abruptly, they vanished as if veiled beneath an obsidian shroud.
"There!" Lanse's voice pierced the ensuing silence. "We need to strike together."
All at once, they beheld the reemergence of the pair of red, incandescent eyes, flickering defiantly amidst the darkness. Tess and her companions surged forward, their swords converging upon the target. Her blade pierced through solid matter, accompanied by the cacophony of clashing weapons echoing from divergent locations.
"Did we just strike our swords at five different targets?" Tess queried, her ire mounting at the prospect of being manipulated.
"How can that be?" Lanse's confusion mirrored her own. "There was only one pair of glowing eyes."
"I saw it too. Right beside me," Zack affirmed, despite his physical distance from the others.
Zino's scream rent the air as movements stirred once more. "It's returned!"
Unified in purpose, they all caught sight of the resurfaced crimson eyes, lunging forth to assail their attackers. However, the onslaught was not from the same location as the eyes, and cries of anguish ruptured the silence as they were hurled to the ground in agony.
The solid object struck with unyielding force, eliciting a sharp, stinging pain that surged from the point of impact. Slowly, Tess struggled to push herself up from the ground, her gaze scanning the area, only to find the eyes had vanished into the ether. Immobilized by caution, she endeavored to remain utterly silent, while her own heartbeat reverberated in her ears, resounding louder than ever before.
Five minutes trickled by, devoid of any further encounters. Tess, growing increasingly exasperated, voiced her annoyance, "What on GeoSaun are we fighting?"
Zack blurted out, his words tinged with discomfort, "Feels like...rock people."
A faint chuckle rippled through the air, preceding Lanse's voice. "That's the craziest thing I've ever heard."
Szedra, pondering the curious correlation between her headaches and the luminous eyes, interjected, "I believe we should close our eyes."
A profound silence descended, leaving the others to contemplate the validity of this suggestion—whether it was a stroke of genius or simply sheer madness.
Recalling Szedra's knack for unraveling mysteries, Tess speculated whether her ability played a role in these revelations. Eagerly, she inquired, "Did your ability inspire that idea? Did you witness a vision?"
Szedra's disappointed reply resonated, "No."
"Then it's a dreadful idea," Tess retorted.
However, Lanse intervened, his voice close at hand, "No, I believe Szedra may be onto something. Let's fight with our eyes closed, cutting through anything that isn't one of us."
Tess was taken aback by the proximity of his voice, prompting her to reconsider her reliance on sight alone, which had faltered more than once throughout their trials. Perhaps her ears, attuned to the subtlest of sounds, held the key to discerning truth in the midst of darkness.
"Wait," Zino interjected, her voice emerging amidst the collective deliberation. "If we're fighting with our eyes closed, how will we know our enemy from ourselves?"
"Good question," Lanse admitted, his voice tinged with uncertainty. He pondered, grappling with the absence of a ready answer.
Szedra chimed in with a suggestion, "How about we whistle?"
Zino's admission followed, "I don't know how to whistle."
The others stifled their laughter, taken aback by the incredulous statement from an eighteen-year-old.
Zack intervened, his tone earnest, "I don't think that's crucial. We simply need to signal that we're not the enemy, so we don't mistakenly attack each other."
Lanse pondered on the logic of speaking their technique so loudly. Hopefully, the opponent had no interest in their conversion.
"Excellent," Tess exclaimed, inspiration dawning upon her. She devised a brilliant alternative: she would hum a fragment of one of her favorite songs. Suddenly, the notion of whistling and fighting seemed less practical.
Before she could divulge her ingenious plan, the ground stirred once more, heralding the emergence of several glowing red eyes. Like their companions, Tess shut her eyes tightly, gripping a sword in each hand. Heightened senses granted them a more acute perception of their surroundings, enabling the discernment of distinct sounds.
Tess maintained her stance, striking out at anything that ventured near her. The resistance she encountered as one of her blades connected with a solid obstruction only bolstered the plausibility of rock people. Liberating her ensnared weapon with a single swift slash, she resumed her relentless assault, ensuring to listen for any telltale signs of a human presence before delivering her blows.
Abruptly, a shrill, high-pitched scream rent the air, jolting Tess into a state of momentary paralysis. She ceased her humming and clenched her eyes shut even tighter, her ears perked, intently attuned to the surrounding soundscape.
"Who was that?" she voiced, her query hanging in the tense silence.